E-mail and its discontents

Some interesting stats on e-mail usage, courtesy of ClearContext, a San Francisco-based software company that??s developed an inbox manager for Microsoft Outlook.

A couple of tidbits particularly caught my attention: About one-third of the respondents say they use Google??s Gmail, a service that??s still technically in beta ?? though the rumor is that the company??s getting close to an official debut. The other point: roughly half the respondents `fessed up to keeping anywhere from 50 to more than 3000 old emails in their inbox. Don??t let my IT administrator know but I??m a repeat offender on that count.

Of course, the broader question of how to best manage the daily inflow of email remains the holy grail of the software business. Spam shows no sign of letting up. The biggest change on that front seems to be that Suha Arafat has replaced Sani Abacha as my most persistent spam interlocutor.

Whether it??s a company like ClearContext or some other startup, whatever bright bulb comes up with the magic bullet ?? if such a thing even exists when we??re talking about spam ?? will walk away rich and famous.